Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
An Iliad
December 1, 2011
Homerathon Post-Homer-tem
Ok, so the title of this post is a stretch, but the word “postmortem” sounds just so…well…morbid…that I thought I would spice things up.
The Homerathon….ah yes, The Homerathon…well, it all started one seemingly innocuous Wednesday several months ago when two students from UC’s Classical Entertainment Society sat in on our weekly marketing meeting and asked us if we would like to team up with them to put on a 24 hour reading of Homer’s Iliad. I believe my initial reaction was something along the lines of “Wait…what? This is a thing? People do this? Wait…are you serious?” As it turns out…they were serious.
Fast forward past literally hundreds of emails (I counted), five weekly meetings in Einstein Bros Bagels, and one trip to the craft store to Tuesday, November 20th.
In 24 hours, 75 readers including 8 professors from the University of Chicago managed to read all 24 books using 5 English translations (Fagles, Lattimore, Fitzgerald, Pope, Chapman) as well as six foreign translations (ancient Greek, modern Greek, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Turkish.). Some passages even benefited from the bolstering effects of puppetry, clowning, and singing. There were Trojan Horses made out of graham crackers and there were shields made out of paper plates. There were children too young to read and there were best-selling authors (that’s right, UC alum Sara Paretsky stopped by and even signed our banner). There was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief...twice.
Basically, it was awesome. Not only did we mobilize and engage the Humanities division at UChicago, we also seemingly captured the imagination of the Chicago community at large with what was an almost unbelievable amount of press coverage:
Chicago Sun-Times
Examiner.com
Crain’s Chicago Business
Huffington Post
Theatre in Chicago
Broadway World
Janine’s Entertainment Blog
Diskord
Free Things to Do in Chicago
PHOTOS
Professor David Wray gets the party started with Book 1:
A Trojan Horse is born…
The translations
Wide-angle Iliad
Two of the students who made it happen
Note the ear muffs.
Round about midnight—
I missed the puppet show, but I did get to see this:
And here’s Sara Paretsky!
A sincere thank you to everyone who made this event possible. Erin Kelsey, Evan Garrett, Ryan Mease, Drew Dir, Brea Hayes—you are all awesome. In the words of Drew Dir, “Shine on you crazy diamonds.”
November 29, 2011
Circling up and nerding out
There have been some very blog-worthy happenings that have yet to be blogged about this month, and I think it’s high time I chronicle these bloggable occasions with some overdue blog posts, don’t you? (blog is a very fun word btw).
So! As November draws to a close, let me tell you about the Producer’s Circle event we had waaay back on the very first day of this month.
I think we at Court can all safely say that we’ve truly been celebrating our inner nerds this month with the development and opening of An Iliad, and the Producer’s Circle event was no exception. Let me be clear that I use the term “nerd” in the most loving and positive way, being that I am definitely one myself. I invited myself to this event not only for some blog-material and dinner, but also because I thought the whole concept for the evening was pretty cool. Basically we got to see rare editions of The Iliad and The Odyssey that are housed in the Special Collections Research Center in the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library and learn about the evolution of the material and its seemingly endless translations (my favorite being the 18th century french translation by Madame Dacier.You go girl.)
The evening wrapped up with a fascinating talk by Classics professor David Wray about the first couple of pages of text in the Alexander Pope translation and a conceptual overview of our production of AN Iliad by Artistic Director Charlie Newell.
I’m not even going to try and recreate what was said because I’m just not that smart (although I have to say I was proud of myself for asking Prof David Wray if ancient Greek was a tonal language like modern Korean, which I felt was quite the erudite question. (As it turns out, ancient Greek was indeed tonal.)), but I did take lots of pictures—so enjoy!
(for more info on the producer’s circle contact Melissa Aburano-Meister at maam@uchicago.edu).
November 4, 2011
Blog Saga Part II: The set of An Iliad’s photo journal
I have to admit, I’m a little obsessed with the set for An Iliad. I’ve watched it grow up over the past few weeks from its nascent stage as a tiny, unassuming set model with big dreams through its difficult teenage years as a mess of blue foam, tile, and rubble to the confidence and grandeur of its emerging “set adulthood.” And now I share this journey with you:
The Concept (as previously pictured)
The Beginning
Middle School
High School
Graduation Gown (being sewn in the lobby)
Getting ready for the big day! (as in opening…this metaphor may or may not be working but I’m sticking with it)
Scenic design by Todd Rosenthal.
November 3, 2011
An Interview with Set Designer Todd Rosenthal
The blog and myself were sick yet again, so I will be posting today and tomorrow to make up for our mutual absence on Tuesday. I have a lot of great material about the set of An Iliad, so instead of cramming it into one post, I am going to spread it out over two posts and create what I am calling a “blog saga.”
Blog Saga Part 1: An Interview with Set Designer Todd Rosenthal
1) Tell me about the design concept for the set of An Iliad
We want the space to feel like an ancient sight, but not too specific. Is it an ancient bath, a temple, a swimming pool? It needs to be ambiguous like the narrator, but antiquated.The walls are covered with ancient graffiti, so the space resembles an insane asylum covered with possessed scrawling. The poet onstage is a reluctant narrator. The story of the Iliad is being channeled through him, and he tries to stop, but he can’t. We want the space to reflect this struggle. The white fabric above the set came out of artists depictions of ancient theaters that were covered with awnings to protect the audience from the elements. We also wanted to control the color and texture of the sky.
2) How did the design concept for An Iliad change and evolve over time?
The stage directions infer that the poet enters into a space that is not his own. He enters into our space. So Charlie and I originally imagined a contemporary theater space. But, we eventually felt it would more interesting to make the space that could transport the audience to another time.
3) What is your favorite part of the design and why?
The fabric overhead. It makes the theater intimate and unified. It makes the theater go away, and it creates a space where a community of people can listen to a story under a tent.
4) You have quite a large body of work—do you think this set is a good representation of your “style” or does it differ in any major ways from your usual work?
I always try to create a space with a strong point of view that has enough detail to reflect the history of the people who inhabit it. This fits into that category.
5) Is there anything else you’d like to share about the design or process?
It’s great to be back at Court Theater. It’s been 10 years.
You can check out Todd’s body of work on his website: www.toddar.com
October 28, 2011
A Story for the Ages
Apologies for the belated blog post, but both the blog and myself are afflicted with the plague that is haunting Court Theatre’s administrative offices and were unable to be our usual pithy selves yesterday. Please accept this article which was originally published by in the Seattle Repertory Theatre Magazine as my blog-offering for today.
A Story for the Ages: An Iliad director Lisa Peterson shares why now is the best time to revisit the Trojan War
Originally Published in Seattle Repertory Theatre Magazine
By Ian Chant
In books, on film, and now on the stage, the story of the Trojan War has been experiencing a renaissance in recent years. But what is it about a war that occurred thousands of years ago that remains so resonant today? An Iliad director Lisa Peterson supposes that there’s never really a wrong time to take a new look at the world’s oldest war story. “Somewhere in the world, people are always at war,” says Peterson.
However, some times are more right than others to revisit the infamous conflict—particularly as it’s told through Homer’s classic tale, The Iliad. “This particular moment, I think, is unique,” Peterson says. “The Iliad begins nine years into a war that may have lost its underlying meaning.” It’s a situation that mirrors what many see in the current American military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the midst of the second Iraq war, Peterson found her own interest in dramatic responses to war sparked anew. As she was researching the topic and discussing it with colleagues, a friend made the argument that The Iliad was not a poem but a dramatic work. “It was a remnant of the oral tradition, it was an out-loud story; it was never intended to be something that you just read on paper. And I was really interested in that,” says Peterson. “I had studied The Iliad in college, but… I had never thought of it as a play, and I don’t think most people do.”
Peterson was also intrigued by the opportunity to put a unique theatrical spin on a literary classic. After taking a long hiatus from helming the adaptations that marked her early career as a director, she was eager to return to adapting work, though not in a traditional manner. “I wanted to work on something as an adapter, and I was really interested in working directly with an actor instead of with a writer,” Peterson says. “I was interested in the idea of Homer as a traveling storyteller, as opposed to someone who sits and writes, and so it made more sense to go to an actor friend.”
Peterson began collaborating on the work with friend and performer Denis O’Hare, initiating a multi-year process. Last spring, An Iliad premiered at Seattle Rep. While their original idea was an improvisational piece that would change slightly with every performance, “It did end up getting written down and codified…and now it is a script, but we are still trying to capture that sensation that he’s making it up on the spot,” Peterson says. “We’re trying to create the kind of feeling that might have been in the room thousands of years ago when Homer was telling the story.”
Instilling that sense of awe at the spoken word in a modern audience is no small order. Peterson and O’Hare’s adaptation emphasizes the wide-ranging appeal of the tale and of storytelling, making An Iliad a bridge of sorts between the ancient and the modern. “We are imagining that our poet…has been around for millennia. He was there during the war, and he is doomed to walk the earth and tell his story. And over the years, he has adapted, always, to be wherever he happens to be.”
As the development process on An Iliad moves ahead, the original continues to surprise Peterson. “Almost every day I find something…that I feel like I’ve never read,” Peterson says. But not every surprise can be brought to the stage. In crafting a 90-minute one-person show from an epic poem, choosing what aspects of the story to explore can be difficult. Ultimately, An Iliad focuses on exploring the source material’s meditations on the nature of war. “We dug until we found the core of the story,” Peterson says, “and for us that core is the conflict between two great warriors, Hector and Achilles.”
